


Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

by Ahigheroctave



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahigheroctave/pseuds/Ahigheroctave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In the sweat of the face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast though taken: for dust thou art and unto to dust shalt thou return."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> For Becca and Gleeverse's Tell Me a Story challenge.

She continually burns herself to the ground and rebuilds herself from the ashes. She’s a self-contained fire, until she can’t help but burn out of control. She loses Puck because she’s nothing more than a warm flame in the middle of the night. She loses Brittany because she can’t help but spit sparks onto everything beautiful around her.

  
She’s bored with blondie and his abs. Bored with the way he keeps imitating actors, but his voices all blur together until all she hears his him. She’s bored with his Justin Bieber hair and his blowfish lips and the way he keeps speaking to her in some language called Na’vi from some geek movie she didn’t waste Puck’s money to see.

  
So she leaves a note in his locker, doesn’t even bother slamming the door behind her.

  
Unlike Quinn, she enjoys getting caught. Even better if she can get away with it right under The Biebs’ nose, because cheating is always more fun.

_Whenever you're done with Not-So-Virgin-Mary, you know where to find me. ;)  
-Satan_

He’ll ignore it, she’s sure of it. She keeps the nurse’s outfit just in case.

:…:

Three months. Two days. That's how long his relationship with Quinn Fabray the second time around.

  
One minute he’s on top of the world. The next he walks into the auditorium and sees an unsightly tangle of limbs on the floor. A flash of blond hair, the back of a Mohawk held between two cheerleading-toned legs, and he knows that he wasn’t the only dalliance behind Sam’s back. He wasn’t even the better one.

  
There’s a lot of words. They’re all from him. _Slut_. _Whore_. _Liar_. She just stands quickly and covers herself with a letterman jacket so familiar to his own that it aches. It takes her three syllables to shut him up. _Hypocrite_.

He’s out of the room so quickly, he can feel dust in the wake behind him.

:…:

They meet in the lobby of the motel. It seems smaller, dirtier than he remembers it the first time. She leaves the shiny purple nightie at home. It’s just as well, her red tank top doesn’t even make it to Room 213.

  
His hands fumble with the clasp of her bra in the elevator. Hers are firm behind her as she pushes him against the wood-paneled wall and mounts him. She leaves teeth marks along his neck, he gets bolder and snaps the spaghetti strap of her shirt with his giant Frankenstein paws. She’s just got his zipper down when she hears a noise behind her and he blinks in that trademark Finnfused way.

  
A group of tourists stand outside the open door, staring at them as they press up against each other. One of them looks a little over sixty and his dentures gleam at them as he clutches his activity map tight.

It’s the first time he’s been thrown out of a seedy inn. She’s a little too proud.

:…:

Seasons pass. In the spring they defile the Ferris Wheel of a local carnival while blondie wins her an overstuffed unicorn. The summer heat brings excuses to sneak off to her parents lake cabin under the pretense that she’s with her family and he’s doing nice things with his Great Aunt Gertrude. Fall comes and so does Jewnicorn, back into the big picture.

They stop.

That is, until they don’t anymore.

:…:

They almost make it to graduation without getting caught. Almost.

It’s prom. She wears a tight, miniature black dress. He wears a penguin suit complete with a pink bow-tie to match Pippi Longstocking’s hideous poof of a monstrosity. They make it through the slow dances and the romantic decorations. The declaration of King Sex Shark and Queen Barbie causes problems though, problems both of them try to hide by drinking their weight.

  
The picture that will later hang on his mantel-piece consists of his girlfriend crying while he rubs his eyes in reaction to the light from the flash.

Two hours after it’s taken they break up. She ends an hour of searching for him by catching him removing the ebony silk with his teeth. She ends their relationship with an open palm to his cheek. Blowfish is hardly any classier, he sends her a text once she sobers up.

:…:

They spend the summer in a haze somewhere between high, drunk, and disbelief. There aren’t usually any clothes involved, at least not for long. Their last night together belongs to the motel, passing a bottle of whiskey from her father’s cabinet back and forth between the two of them. They play I never. _I’ve never been in love with you_. He makes no move to drink, she sneaks a sip when he isn’t looking.

In the end, she’s the one that leaves. She gets a college scholarship, for singing. He gets nothing, not for music or for school or for football. He packs her last box into the BMW her father bought her as a graduation president and they stand idly behind it. They guess this is goodbye. Her arms cross against her chest, he scratches his neck idly.

“Who ever thought I’d be the one getting out of this town?” She laughs but it isn’t really funny. Scary, threatening, wonderful, those are all better words.

“Who ever guessed I’d be the Lima Loser?” He bites his lip and looks at the ground.

Suddenly, he feels hands on his shoulders and a wet cheek against his neck. He’s so shocked he can’t speak, let alone find his limp noodle arms around her. He settles for just resting his chin on her forehead and making some kind of ssh noise. It seems to work, she calms down awfully quickly.

“Goodbye, Cabbage Patch,” She smiles, turning her head down so he won’t see her stained cheeks. “I’ll see you around.”

“Next time you’re in Lima, I’ll buy you a beer,” He says dumbly and she nods, climbing into her car.

She drives off into the sunset and he stands on his curb for a long time afterwards.

:…:

He never makes good on his promise.


End file.
